Marine Conservation and Environmental Science
Pollution, over-fishing, environmentally destructive fishing methods, and climate change increasingly threaten our fragile oceans. Scientists in the Morris Center are working to understand the dynamics of local marine ecosystems and how those ecosystems are affected by human activity. Two areas of current research are eelgrass beds in Frenchman’s Bay and the Callahan Mine, which was designated as an EPA Superfund site in 2002.
Eelgrass beds provide critical nursery habitat for numerous marine species, including cod, flounder, herring, and lobster, but have been disappearing from the Atlantic seaboard at a rapid rate. Working collaboratively with local fishermen, schools, and other groups, MDIBL scientists are restoring a protected area in Frenchman’s Bay and studying transplantation methods, seed dispersal, and the ecology of eelgrass beds.
The Callahan Mine site is located in Brooksville, Maine, and was once the world’s only intertidal heavy metal mine. Today, the site is contaminated with heavy metals such as lead, copper, and zinc. MDIBL scientists are working to understand the dynamics of the ecosystem before, during and after remediation of the site. They are studying the way heavy metals pass through food webs and the genetic changes that have taken place in organisms such as killifish as a result of long-term exposure to heavy metal contamination.
Director, MDIBL Community Environmental Health Laboratory
Visiting Faculty, Louisiana State University
Visiting Faculty, University of Hawaii Manoa
Senior Investigator
Visiting Faculty, University of Maine, Augusta
Visiting Faculty, University of Hawaii Manoa
Visiting Faculty, College of the Atlantic
Director of Scientific Resources
